India orders social media companies to get rid of child sexual abuse material
Although YouTube and Telegram spokespeople have repeated the social media companies’ stances on the issue, India sees broader inaction in a domain which is becoming increasingly central to the IT ministry’s zero-tolerance approach.
India’s Ministry for Electronics and IT has issued notices to social media platforms X (formerly known as Twitter), YouTube, and Telegram, demanding the immediate and permanent removal of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from their platforms in India.
The announcement, made on Friday, calls for adopting preventive actions, like content moderation algorithms and reporting systems, to hinder the future spread of CSAM. The Indian government has reiterated its zero-tolerance stance towards harmful and criminal content on the Indian internet.
The rules under the 2021 IT Act clearly state the obligation of intermediaries to refrain from hosting harmful or criminal content, such as CSAM. Rule 3(1)(b) mandates all intermediaries, regardless of their size, to make ‘reasonable efforts’ to ensure their platform does not host obscene, pornographic, paedophilic content, or anything that is ‘harmful to children’, among other things. Rule 4(4) necessitates significant social media intermediaries, i.e. social media platforms with over 5 million users in India, to strive to employ technology-based solutions to proactively identify and remove CSAM.
Why does it matter?
The government has cautioned that should these platforms not take prompt action, they risk losing their ‘safe harbour’ protection as outlined in Section 79 of the IT Act. This would mean that the platforms could face direct prosecution under the relevant laws and regulations, even if they weren’t content uploading. This also implies that these companies might lose their immunity from legal responsibility if they fail to adhere to the regulations.
The Indian government’s stringent stance, especially since adding to the 2021 IT Act, could herald a new era of stricter regulation and oversight of social media platforms in India and across the globe. It underscores the need for tech companies to bear greater responsibility for the content disseminated on their platforms.
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